Tuli Mekondjo headed to Stellenbosch Triennale

Tuli Mekondjo’s star continues to rise as she prepares to show at the Stellenbosch Triennale.

The prestigious event returns to the historic town of Stellenbosch from 19 February to 30 April under the theme ‘BA’ZINZILE: A Rehearsal for Breathing’, which features three exhibitions, namely ‘From the Vault’, ‘In the Current’ and ‘On the Cusp’.

Tuli Mekondjo will make her triennale debut as a featured artist in ‘On the Cusp’, a platform designed to spotlight emerging artists from Africa and the diaspora. This year’s ‘On the Cusp’ cohort incudes artists from Colombia, Chile, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“It’s my very first time being invited to the Stellenbosch Triennale and I feel great,” says Tuli Mekondjo at her studio in Windhoek. The self-taught Namibian artist will be presenting the third iteration of her multidisciplinary ‘Eshina lyo ku topa topa/Typewriter’ within the triennale programme.

Concerned with reframing colonial photographic archives and giving voice to the indigenous Namibian women both hidden and silenced in colonial era museum collections, Tuli Mekondjo aims to usher these women into the light through performance, ritual and symbolic garment-making.

Inspired by food items such as mahangu and eendunga (palm fruit), which she found at the Berlin Ethnological Museum, Tuli Mekondjo’s presentation will draw on happenings as significant as the battle at Hornkranz and the horrors of Shark Island, and as commonplace as indigenous women’s domestic labour and child-minding.

“I invite everybody who is open and wants to know more about these colonial histories to experience this work. I feel like there’s a lot we don’t know and there’s much to discover and uncover,” says Tuli Mekondjo.

“There is a lot in the archives that is actually being hidden; stories, narratives and things about us that we don’t know and have no access to,” she says.

“The work is about us, our struggles, our trauma and our journeys and the process of wanting to heal.”

Tuli Mekondjo is the recipient of the prestigious Villa Romana Prize, 2024, she took part in the DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Programme in 2022, was shortlisted for the Norval Sovereign Africa art prize 2022/2023 and performed at the Biennale de Dakar last year. She is represented by Guns & Rain (Johannesburg) and Hales Gallery (New York).

While the artist has exhibited all over the world, Tuli Mekondjo is passionate about showcasing her work in Africa.

“I think it’s important for us to represent our beautiful countries. Last year, I went to Dakar, and it’s important for me to also take part in the triennale and the shows that are happening on the continent,” says Tuli Mekondjo.

“It is our duty as artists. We shouldn’t just say Europe is more important,” she says.

“I think it’s even more important for us to know ourselves, our own artists, our own work and to give to our own people.”

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com